Teens taunted by bullies are more likely to consider, attempt suicide — This just in: water is wet. I know the point of stories like this is that quantifiable study results can prompt official action, but as long-time victim of childhood bullying who had a lot of suicidal ideation and one semi-serious attempt, I have ask why anyone in authority over children needs to wait for academic approval?

Oh Lordy – on the forthcoming Christian film Persecution — Basically, this is a movie in which it’s overtly asserted that in order for Christians to be “free” the government cannot endorse the idea of fairness to all religions. Indeed, it seems that liberty has now been interpreted as a requirement to officially acknowledge that America is a Christian Nation and must adhere to Christian precepts.

When an Undue Burden? — What if gun laws were written like abortion laws? Would those Constitution-loving conservatives embrace the intent of the Founders the same way? (Via Scrivener’s Error.)

Journalists should stop ‘balancing’ stories with Science Denialists: Cosmos’s Neil DeGrasse Tyson — Either that or go all the way. Every time a story runs about a weather satellite, a Flat Earth denialist should get equal time. It would be precisely as intellectually credible as evolution denial and climate denial, as the Bible clearly states that the Earth has four corners, and would help those elements in our culture hell bent on destroying any public understanding of science to further their political ends.

The Uses and Abuses of Reagan — One of Bush’s flaws is that he governed as more of a hard-line ideologue than Reagan ever pretended to be, and another is that he claimed to be an internationalist while making a mockery of America’s reputation in the world. Republicans should not be deluded into thinking that they are obliged to follow Bush’s example in order to honor Reagan, but neither should they feel compelled to respond to contemporary events as if nothing had changed in the last thirty years. Confidential to GOP in America: Want another Reagan? Elect another senile old fraud who projects a strong Daddy image. It worked for you last time.

Why Republicans Don’t Want to Acknowledge the Falling Deficit — The steep decline of the deficit is not something Republicans really want to talk about, even though their austerity policies were largely responsible for it. If the public really understood how much the deficit has fallen, it would undermine the party’s excuse for opposing every single spending program, exposing the “cost to future generations” as a hyped-up hoax. Mmm, evidence-based thinking for the win, not.

“Stand Your Ground” Nation — America used to value the concept of retreat. Now we just shoot. The paranoid bullies with their guns are winning.

One-Third Of Millennials Who Left Their Religion Did It Because Of Anti-Gay Policies: Survey — I know from listening to American religious leaders that Jesus’ teachings on homosexuality are far more prominent and important in the New Testament than His teachings on ministering to the poor, or feeding the hungry, or hypocrisy, or love of self and neighbor. Just look how many verses are devoted to each of those topics, after all. He preached constantly on the gay menace. Wait, what?

There Are Two Christian Right Movies Called ‘Persecuted’ Coming Out This Year — We’ve written quite a bit about the Religious Right’s conviction that conservative Christians in the U.S. are facing religious persecution through things like gay rights and the expansion of contraception access. Well, in case we needed a confirmation that this is in fact the direction of the right-wing zeitgeist, it turns out that are several movies coming out this year about the supposed oppression of Christians in America. And two of them have the same title: “Persecuted.” (Via Slacktivist Fred Clark.)

Fox’s Tucker Carlson: It’s “Fascism” For Businesses To Have To Treat Gay Customers Equally — Carlson’s attempts to distinguish between refusing to provide services related to a gay wedding and refusing to serve gay people in general ignore the substance of the bill. New York University constitutional law professor Kenji Yoshino has noted that the measure is broadly written enough that it would allow any individual or business owner to refuse services to any gay person as long as he or she contended that providing services would burden his or her religious beliefs. So I guess we’ll have to carry gay/straight cards, as well as religious IDs?

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer vetoes divisive bill seen as anti-gay — “Seen as” anti-gay? “Flatly intended to be” anti-gay is the simple truth. And I am amazed at this veto, given that the Religious Right never backs down on anything. Would have been nice if she’d vetoed the bill because it is profoundly unConstitutional and against everything American values stand for, rather than due to the economic backlash, but I guess morality is where you find it when you’re a Republican governor in a conservative state.

Dick Cheney Broke US Military, now blames Obama for Cuts — Oh, come on. It’s all Obama’s fault. You can’t blame Cheney for anything. The last Republican to bear any responsibility whatsoever for their destructive acts in office was Richard Nixon. Reagan’s teflon coat is still ubiquitous among GOP pols.

Why I left the GOP — My old Republican worldview was flawed because it was based upon a small and particularly rosy sliver of reality. To preserve that worldview, I had to believe that people had morally earned their “just” desserts, and I had to ignore those whining liberals who tried to point out that the world didn’t actually work that way. I think this shows why Republicans put so much effort into “creat[ing] our own reality,” into fostering distrust of liberals, experts, scientists, and academics, and why they won’t let a campaign “be dictated by fact-checkers” (as a Romney pollster put it). It explains why study after study shows — examples here, here, and here – that avid consumers of Republican-oriented media are more poorly informed than people who use other news sources or don’t bother to follow the news at all. Waking up to a fuller spectrum of reality has proved long and painful. (Via shsilver.)

A License to Discriminate — There are 17 states where it is legal for same-sex couples to marry, and there is no evidence that the accelerating progress toward equality has compromised anyone’s freedom to worship or hold religious beliefs. Unfortunately, that has not stopped religious and social conservatives from pressing lawmakers in various states to enact noxious measures to give businesses and individuals the broad right to deny services to same-sex couples in the name of protecting religious liberty.

Senators on SB1062: “We made a mistake” — A trio of Arizona state senators urged Gov. Jan Brewer to veto a controversial “religious freedom” bill on Monday, just days after all three cast votes in favor of the proposal that opponents say will legalize discrimination. These unAmerican conservative jerks don’t even have the balls to stand proudly for the same bigoted hate they were happy to vote in for relative anonymity a week ago? Poor widdle babies, facing consequences for their profoundly destructive actions. Such accountability rarely happens to conservatives, of course. I suppose this is progress, but it would have been a lot more progress not to embrace such a hideously immoral piece of GOP vote pandering in the first place.

Arizona Confronting Awkward Realization That Gay People Have Money, Buy Stuff — Acknowledging that her vote for the anti-gay law might have been calamitous for the state’s economy, Ms. Foyler placed the blame for it squarely on the shoulders of one group: the gays themselves. “How was I supposed to know what gay people do with their money, etc., when I don’t personally know any gay people?” she asked. “I’m sorry, but it was up to the gays to tell us.” (Via Lisa Costello.)

[movies] Elysium and Ender’s Game

Yesterday whilst Lisa Costello was out being busy, the_child wanted to watch a movie. She was really interested in Ender’s Game [ imdb ], but wanted to wait for Lisa to come home and watch it. (Knowing of her interest, I’d previously decided not to get into the deeply problematic political issues around OSC, though later, after we finished watching, there was a teachable moment, which I shall describe below.)

So instead we rented Elysium [ imdb ] whilst waiting for Lisa. Most of the reviews I’d seen of this movie had panned it, but I actually rather liked the film. It was basically a mashup of In Time [ imdb ] and District 9 [ imdb ]. Which is of course unsurprising, since South African Neill Blomkamp directed both District 9 and Elysium. The movie didn’t ask a lot from the viewer, and key elements of worldbuilding fell quite flat on even the most cursory critical consideration, but if you just followed the thread of the action and invested in both the eye candy and the dystopian porn, it held together. Plus the_child and I got to talk about the fact that there are places in the world today just like the horribly decaying shanty towns portrayed in the movie’s grim future. A fun enough SFnal adventure where the show was mostly stolen by Jodie Foster, although Sharlto Copley did a fine job of chewing the rug hard enough to dent the floor, while Matt Damon played his slightly superpowered everyman version of Matt Damon.

After Lisa came home, we tooled up and rented Ender’s Game. Setting aside both my memories of the book and my feelings about OSC, it was a pretty good movie. A lot of the plot was forced, but then, that was kind of the point. With occasional clicks of the pause button for discussion, the_child understood how Ender’s entire existence was being managed by deception and manipulation. Since she’d never read the book, she didn’t know the stakes in the graduation battle sequence until Ender himself found out, and she very much shared his profound sense of anguish and betrayal. I’m not sure I would have enjoyed this film so much if I had not been watching with a teen aged viewer, but I did. Afterwards, when we were talking about Ender and the adults in his life, and the Formics, I was able to explain that the man who wrote that book so full of human understanding and real pain had long since turned into a very sad, vile person who worked very hard to do evil to many other people. She opined that OSC’s personal story was sort of like Ender’s story, which I thought was a fascinating insight.

[personal] Lacuna of wit and erudition this day

I slept poorly on Thursday night, so yesterday was very low-and-slow. Still managed some socialization when mlerules came over bearing pizza and we all watched Despicable Me 2 [ imdb ], a household favorite in these here parts.

Having a family gathering at midday today, again here at the house so I don’t have to strain myself going out. I’m capable of driving, but it exhausts me, so I do as little as possible, and only where there’s a strong value associated with that investment of my time and energy.

At any rate, I grew neither irate nor inspired about anything, so today is Banal Blog Post day. Feel free to ask questions in comments, if you wish. About anything that strikes your fancy.

Star Wars actor dies: His ‘disturbing’ Star Wars role outshone a long career — Star Wars actor Richard LeParmentier died this morning in Austin. “Every time we find someone’s lack of faith disturbing, we’ll think of him,” said his family in a statement. Awesome quote in the subhead on this piece. (Via David Goldman.) ETA: While still amusing, it has been pointed out to me this is very stale news. My apologies, I did not check the date.

Old Arctic Ice Is Disappearing, and Taking the Rest of the Ice With It — It’s not hard to see that over the past few years, the oldest ice has melted away, and over time the ice gets younger. That’s not good: Older ice is thicker and tends to hang around longer; young ice is generally thinner and melts away every summer. That means that the year-round amount of ice is dropping, and dropping rapidly. As the Arctic warms, its ability not just to form ice but to keep it wanes.

Religious Liberty Or Anti-Gay Animus? — For me, with devout Catholics, the acid test is divorce. The bar on divorce – which, unlike the gay issue, is upheld directly by Jesus in the Gospels – is just as integral to the Catholic meaning of marriage as the prohibition on gay couples. So why no laws including that potential violation of religious liberty? Both kinds of marriage are equally verboten in Catholicism. So where is the political movement to insist that devout Catholics do not have to cater the second weddings of previously divorced people? Yup. Nails it.

Let’s get straight who is paying for whom — More on the ridiculous belief among rural conservatives that they are somehow being bled dry by taxes to pay for the big cities. You know, those liberal “facts” and “data”. I especially like this bit: But it’s very, very tiresome to watch a bunch of delusional narcissists taking urban tax dollars to pay for their rural infrastructure and safety nets (most SNAP recipients are white, remember) elect a bunch of jokers to Congress who prevent the people who actually pay the bills from solving big problems like climate change, healthcare, privacy, wealth inequality, poverty, and financial corruption.

[movies] The Lego Movie

Yesterday, the_child and I went to a matinee of The Lego Movie [ imdb ]. I was highly, highly entertained.

A lot of what I’d like to say about the movie would be spoileriffic, and it’s far too new a movie for me to be doing that. Suffice to say that this is one of those movies that falls into the category of “better than it had to be.” The visuals ranged from hilarious to occasionally breathtaking to sometimes goofy. The dialog had some fantastic lines, including one from Metalbeard that had me losing my shit in the theater. Trust me, you’ll know it when you hear it. And while the script didn’t have the depth and heart of some of Pixar’s stronger work, it was plenty warm and worthwhile.

One thing that I loved about this movie was the way they totally owned the cross-licensing. Lego has licenses with half the media universe, and characters show up in this film you’d never, ever see together in any other circumstance. Gandalf arguing with Dumbledore, for example. Plus best movie Batman EVAR. Just retire the Dark Knight franchise now, please. Not to mention which the Batman/Star Wars crossover bit was deeply hilarious.

So, yeah. Unless you just can’t stand animation, or don’t care for light-hearted films, go see this. (Though there are some less light-hearted moments.) The Lego Movie is funny as heck, and short enough not to overplay its gags.

[personal] Five things make a post, I think

Let’s see if I can count.

1) Dad, Lisa Costello and I are flying home this afternoon. This because NIH pushed back the start date of my immunotherapy by about three weeks from what we originally expected. I can’t really complain, as the reason for this is the genetic selection phase they added to the protocol in order to leverage my Whole Genome Sequencing data and optimize the TIL cell infusion, but it adds another layer of financial cost and logistical complexity to the whole business. Frankly, instead of waiting here to start treatment, we’d have gone home two weeks ago if we’d understood the schedule. Such is personalized medicine in this age of miracle and wonders.

2) I am increasingly interested in seeing the The Lego Movie [ imdb ]. This film seems to fall into the category I call “movies which are much better than they have to be.” A good example of this is 2012’s ParaNorman [ imdb ], which was an animated kids’ comedy about a zombie attack on a New England town. But it had a clever, well thought out script with an ending far more humane than one would ever expect from a zombie movie, which made watching ParaNorman a much more rewarding experience than one would ever expect from the film’s subject matter, genre or marketing. So perhaps with Lego. Maybe this week.

3) The persistent pain knot in my chest has faded a bit. I have recently started taking gabapentin for it. I’m not sure if the connection is causal, as gabapentin has a titration period before it becomes effective. In reading up on gabapentin, I discovered that it can be recreationally abused. Which amazed me. I guess people really will try anything.

4) I have been trying to compose a post about Kansas House Bill 2453, which is a profoundly senseless, cruel effort to enshrine wholesale persecution of gay and lesbian citizens into law, masquerading as a defense of religious freedom. I just can’t figure out what to say that doesn’t make me sound so shrill and angry that I can’t even stand to read it myself. This is the apotheosis of the Republican religious-conservative axis into Poe’s Law, in which their extremism has transcended even self-parody. I have only one question for the religious conservatives of Kansas: “Would you do as you would be done by?” Sadly, we already know the answer to that one.

5) After that number four, I don’t have the heart for a fifth. I guess I can’t count.

Nevada Officials Won’t Defend Gay Marriage Ban — “After thoughtful review and analysis, the state has determined that its arguments grounded upon equal protection and due process are no longer sustainable.“ Another bigotry domino falls in the face of personal freedom and American values.

Now They’re Making the Homeless Freeze to Death in Pensascola — Pensacola Mayor Ashton Hayward has reversed positions on a city ordinance that makes it a crime for the homeless to sleep on public property with a blanket. I’m pretty sure the Bible has something to say about this in Matthew 25:36. I realize Jesus wasn’t up on current American conservative thinking when he talked about clothing the naked, but the principle seems clear. (Via David Goldman.)